A NURSE who caused the death of an infant by crudely circumcising him today walked free from Manchester Crown Court.
Grace Adeleye, 67, of Sarnia Court, Salford, was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence but was given a suspended sentence of 21 months, suspended for two years.
Grace Adeleye
The case involved 27-day-old Goodluck Caubergs who died following the operation at his home in 2010.
Nigerian-born Adeleye was paid £100 to perform a “cultural circumcision” using the traditional clamp and cut method, a technique which the court heard has been “discredited” by medical professionals.
Goodluck’s parents, also Nigerian-born, were not aware that a proper procedure was available on the NHS and the infant tragically bled to death as a result of the operation.
The nurse stated in the trial that she had performed more than 1,000 circumcisions over the course of a 40-year career, but stopped after baby Goodluck’s death.
The defence argued in mitigation that Adeleye, a grandmother caring for her two-year-old grandson, was of good character and had no previous disciplinary hearings against her.
The court also heard that Adeleye had not breached any guidelines or guidance from the Nursing and Midwifery Council when performing the circumcision and the procedure she had carried out was not illegal.
The defence argued:
There was no casual disregard or failure to accept or recognise a departure from an acceptable standard of care??.
Mr Justice Lindblom sentencing said:
This was a tragic death that could have been avoided if, as the jury believed, more care had been taken in the carrying out of the duties and responsibilities.??
He added:
Although you have shown remorse and sorrow for the death, you have not fully acknowledged your role and responsibility for it.??
However, the court heard that this could have been because of a language barrier when preparing the pre-sentence report.
The conditions of the sentence require Adeleye to not re-offend in the next two years, report to an officer when required and maintain a curfew at her home between the hours of 9pm and 7am for six months.
Hat tip: Pete H and BarrieJohn
When, as a species, will we ever escape the insanity of religion? It makes me so, so angry.
WHAT.THE.FUCK. This woman has made money out of unnecessary and “discredited” surgery and failed to take any action when the baby was bleeding to death yet, she is a nurse and “of good character”.
The NHS and the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Government are just as guilty for not making this barbaric ritual illegal.
Fucking savages. Let Darwin reign.
The court also heard that Adeleye had not breached any guidelines or guidance from the Nursing and Midwifery Council when performing the circumcision and the procedure she had carried out was not illegal.
Well, it damned well should be. But she mustn’t reoffend “for the next two years” (Rolls eyes in disbelief!).
Religion, the ultimate “get out of gaol free card” In another circumstance, if one’s action caused a death, a gaol sentence would be mandatory.
What is the shit about the language barrier. If she was a genuine nurse working in this country she would have needed a minimum IELTS level to be here and work. I admit there is often a problem with spoken language becuase accents vary so much and are nearly always totally different to the langauge the person learned. However, the written language does not have those barriers and as this report had to be written she would have had plenty of time to fully understand what was going on.
As Angela said, another religion with a get out of gaol free card. Not helped by an over PC judicial system pandering to the idioces of tribal barbariansism.
Primitive and barbaric. Circumcision for other than medical necessity must be made a crime. It is a disgusting practice performed for the gratification of dogmatic ignorant religious bigots. Those who inflict it and those who promote it need to be criminalised and treated accordingly.
Didn’t this nasty piece of work kill a child? Is there perhaps more criminal activity she should have undertaken before being considered for punishment that would be more than a mere inconvenince? I don’t think I’d want my child near anyone that looks quite as evil as the accused, that is not a flattering image.
So here we have “a “cultural circumcision” using the traditional clamp and cut method.”
What is that. A bulldog clip and a pair of scissors bought at Rymans or Staples?
Most likely.
“a technique which the court heard has been “discredited” by medical professionals”.
But where is the action to stop this!
The court……………..
“also heard that Adeleye had not breached any guidelines or guidance from the Nursing and Midwifery Council when performing the circumcision and the procedure she had carried out was not illegal.”
How does that work? A do-it-yourself home circumcision practice? I thought this was Britain. And how does this make any sense with killing a child through negligence as a medical [un]“professional”.
Was she working freelance or as an NHS registered nurse? And if she was an NHS nurse taking cash payments whilst using NHS ‘equipment’ – that I have no doubt is illegal. Hope she is paying tax on the cash she received.
And then the real crux of the problem with so many people the court states
“ you have not fully acknowledged your role and responsibility for it.”
Killing a child through stupidity in mutilating him. That’s perfectly acceptable to a modern 2013 society because it’s cultural. What puerile nonsense.
And the coup de resistance. She works as a nurse, but can’t communicate! Brilliant. “ the court heard …….. [there] could have been ….a language barrier ….”
I concur with the above comments on this appalling tragedy. Regarding another aspect of the conditions of the Judge’s sentence handed down, is why is she ordered not to re-offend in the next two years? Why is she not ordered to never re-offend; or is it considered that it’s beyond the realms of reasonability to expect her to not repeat this awful practise again in the future?
The main reason for our outrage is that this happened in the UK. Shit like this happens every day all over Africa (some parts more than others). Anyone care to dig out some stats? Bet they’re shocking.
We may as well just hand over our normal standards and concerns to these brutes following their “cultural practices.” Use the religious defence and you can escape punishment for killing a child. What about the exquisite agony which continues to be inflicted on so many babies in the UK? Who is showing any concern? Any comments from the NSPCC? Religious leaders? Politicians? A few minutes on the dire Thought for the Day? Prince Charles, often ready enough to parade his conscience?
This isn’t being done in some remote village in Africa. If they can get away with “cultura” as a defence where is the restraint from the law. This woman was doing it not for any bollocks about “culture” but as a means of regularly raking in £100. What was that judge thinking about? Isn’t it time judges joined the real world?
Matt: I don’t know about Africa, but this is from the USA and males for painful reading.
http://www.circumstitions.com/death.html
*makes
I see that there are some figures from Arica there, but who knows how reliable they would be?
We really are a pestilential species. Not only are we hell bent on exterminating other species (we are in the middle of one of the great planetary extinctions and this one caused by us) but we inflict slaughter and agony on ourselves. And at the core, the primary cause is religious with maniacs wanting us to breed to increase their flocks and, at the same time, torture and slaughter any who disagree with them.
The fate of so many babies, so much pain, as a result of FGM and circumcision is beyond imagination. Every second of every day of every week of every month of every year babies are screaming in agony. And this woman, in the supposedly civilised UK, walks free.
Other considerations apart, would a botched circumcision normally lead to death? How long did it take the woman and the parents to get the child to hospital, for goodness sake? Still, perhaps the “nurse” didn’t believe in hospitals.
Oh, and what’s the point of the curfew? To make sure she only does it in daylight from now on?
@Brian Jordan: I would guess that when things went pear shaped this nurse wasn’t the most medically competent person to respond. The possibility is that she preferred to hope that the baby would recover rather than admit that she was out of her depth. I suppose in the current NHS the last thing anyone wants is to dare suggest that anyone from an ethnic minority isn’t competent.
I know what happens when a medically competent person appears. You just know that they know what they are doing. When the delivery of our first child (a long time ago) caused complications the happiest sight I ever saw was the consultant walking through the door. He dealt with the emergeny. I may be lookist but that nurse would not do much for my confidence.
It’s not just that this person killed a child by performing a botched cultural circumcision, it’s that a “proper Procedure” is available on the NHS! Why? Unless it’s a medical necessity it should be illegal to bugger about with any child’s genitalia.
To everyone bashing religion, this was a “cultural” circumcision, no mention of religiion whatever. and it is a common practice, and usually not dangerous. unfortunately not every procedure goes to plan and sometimes people die in surgery. if this child died on a surgeons table in an nhs hospital you would all be bashing the nhs instead of making racist remarks about “barbarians” and their completely unrelated religious beliefs.
“Adeleye said that, after praying before the operation, as is her custom, she used the traditional Nigerian “clamp and cut” method, which she had used hundreds of times, without any painkillers for the child.”
See http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/circumcision-death-nurse-guilty-of-manslaughter-1490796
Barry Duke many thanks.
What a shame that we tolerate morons like Anon-a mouse.
But then this is freedom.
anon=a-mouse you area facile moronic nong.
The report states very clearly that religion was the entire driving force for this womans totally disgusting and criminal act.
“The 67-year-old is originally from Nigeria, as are the youngster’s parents, where the circumcision of newborns is a tradition for Christian families, the jury heard.
She said it was custom to have a naming ceremony for the child on the eighth day after birth and she would travel from church to church performing the operation.”
You are making comments without thought. Typical of those religiously minded.
as to the procedure being acceptable. I hope you never entertain people like her for YOUR children. [Rather it's best you don't have any children]. But this is not a bona fide ‘operation’ as you seem to rather ignore, this was her running about performing what really is illegal in Britain.
Child sacrifice is a-ok with the Christian God (Judges 11:31).
Whether it was a “cultural” circumcision or not, it’s still savagery. That culture deserves to be utterly destroyed. We won’t need to do anything, the stupid barbarian savages are doing a good enough job on their own.
@anonomous: So we would all be bashing religion, would we? Doing that is always time well spent. I like to “bash” your tyrant, vicious and vengeful God who was invented thousands of years ago. That people, presumably as you do, believe in 2013 that the fairy stories in his contradictory, cruel and nonsensical bible are true begars belief. I suppose you also believe the fantastical nonsense that he, his fictious son Jesus and a holy ghost (I pause here to laugh) are also true.
I also like to bash the head of that criminal organisation the RC Church with is infested with paedophile priests. While these scum rape children the Pope works hard to ensure they escape justice.
And I like to bash pitiless clowns such as yourself who, with brains infected with the toxin of religion, look kindly on religious brutes and excuse their brutality by giving it another name. Religion is a curse on the world, a damnable infliction and a means of exercising power, wielded by cynics, over people too illiterate to realise the way they are being conned. You are one of their dupes, a poor thing, sad beyond belief and suffering from a mental sickness known as religion.
What makes me wild is that her total penalty for killing a baby is to be home by 9pm for six months. No reparations and not even a fine.
barriejohn, the figures at http://www.circumstitions.com/death.html are as reliable as I can make them (I am in NZ, by the way.) The scandal is that there ARE no good figures for circumcision deaths, and it is very easy to blame some secondary aspect for them. Neither parents nor doctors want to admit that their decision or action is the cause.
It truly says it all about what religion does to people when we have a situation where clamping and cutting off a part of an infant’s genitals is culturally acceptable, and an apologist shows up to bicker about semantics and to excuse this violent and cruel practice as “common”.
The reason for circumcision is to mark a child as belonging to a particular community. Usually this concept comes from religious leaders – good luck finding a secular community that decided “hey, let’s cut off bits of our babies because culture”. In some African traditions it is not quite as clear cut (pun not intended) as Judaism and Islam’s direct orders from god, but it is still ritualistic and steeped in what just about everyone in the world would recognise as religion. What else would you call it when you utilise such magical thinking as “this cut will endow this child with its identity among us, and not doing it would cause bad luck”?
As ever, a religious apologist had an opportunity to show the slightest shred of sympathy for the victim, and would rather posture and whine about religion being bashed. They cannot help themselves. They do not care about anything but propping up the edifice of their institutions, to the point of trampling infants underfoot.
Hugh7: I would imagine most figures to be extremely unreliable, especially where the Third World is concerned, and deaths from circumcision to be massively under-reported. Here is the link to the Home page of your excellent site!
http://www.circumstitions.com/index.html
Here we go again. Religion and childrens sexual organs. Why the foreskin? It seems a strange part of the body to remove, why not some organ or apendage that comes in multiples – an eye, ear, arm, leg, finger, or toe etc. Surely this would be a better way of outwardly demonstrating their devotion to a mythical belief system (or are they secretly ashamed). Anyway, if their sky god is so perfect then why did he create humans with a physical defect that just happens to be on the cock or with females the clitorus? Strange!
Of course one simple answer is that these practises came from the mind of a a sick voyeuristic peadophile who created this god who enjoyed nothing more than watching, from on high, children being butchered.
The reason this woman got off with just a warning is because what she did is not illegal in English law. This exposes the need for such law to be passed by the British Parliament – but how many of us truly believe that British politicians will pass any such legislation if it may affect their electoral support?
Under English law, if something is not illegal, it is considered legal to perform such an action, provided that there is no damage to others as a result. In this case, there was damage – fatal damage – and so this woman was prosecuted but not for carrying out the procedure, which is not itself unlawful.
This case highlights the need for someone or somebody – perhpas the BHA? – to start a campaign calling for genital mutilation of any kind to be made illegal, unless it is carried out by qualified and registered doctors in medical emergencies.